


Different

by YamiTami



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awkwardness, Love Confessions, M/M, Sloppy Makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2494529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YamiTami/pseuds/YamiTami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve never felt any attraction towards Bucky <i>Before</i>, back when they were dumb kids in Brooklyn or dumber twenty-somethings charging across Europe with the Howling Commandos. But now, after the train, after the airship, after the two of them spent decades frozen things are <i>different</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different

"Stark really outdid himself, huh?"

Steve looked around Tony's friend's 'little backyard'—the biomechanical engineer who owned the riverfront property was collaborating with Stark Industries and had befriended Tony and Pepper along the way—at the various members of such organizations as the Avengers and X-Men milling around and having a good time. After the most recent potentially world-ending crisis was over Tony declared that he was buying everyone a drink and as it turned out he wasn't kidding. Steve shook his head at his own dismissal when he got the invite; of _course_ Tony was being serious. It was large-scale shwarma.

"Tony can still be irritating, but he comes through when it matters," Steve agreed. He and Tony were long past the 'take away the suit' 'came out of a bottle' phase, but they still butted heads often enough that Steve felt it was his duty to give his friend a hard time.

He glanced sidelong at his conversational companion, sparse conversation though it was. Ever since he arrived Bucky stuck to the fringe of the party. It was still... odd, the reversal of roles where Steve was now the outgoing one and Bucky was the wallflower, but even after recovering from his ordeal Bucky felt more comfortable in the shadows. However, Bucky wasn't as skittish as Steve feared he'd be. Sure, Bucky wasn't at the heart of things like he used to be, back in Brooklyn, back  _Before_ , but when Clint and Remy started taking potshots at empty beer cans with a variety of unusual projectiles Bucky joined the spectators, and afterwards had a long conversation with Logan which seemed to revolve around comparing metallic body modifications. At some point Bucky rolled both his sleeves up to the elbow (from a distance it looked like they were comparing the size and shape of the flesh and cybernetic arm) and even after drifting away from the new spectacle (Logan slashing at whatever Remy and Clint threw at him) Bucky left the sleeves up. His left arm gleamed in the dim lights.

The sight of the arm didn't make Steve wince or sigh like he used to. There was still a distant pang of guilt, sometimes, but sometime in the past few months the arm stopped being a symbol of Steve's perceived failure in protecting his friend and instead simply... was. Kind of like the long hair tied back in a messy ponytail. Or the way Bucky's memory of  _Before_  was a patchwork quilt missing a third of the squares and some of them were all in the wrong order, or the way Bucky's fighting style was still so much more intense than it used to be, or the fact that when they played one-on-one basketball or sparred Steve didn't have to hold back... Sam kept telling him, from the moment they left that graveyard, that he couldn't expect Bucky to be the same. Steve could look back now and realize how foolish he'd been denying what Sam was telling him and thinking that maybe once he found Bucky that everything would snap back to normal. It took him a while to accept that 'normal' for them ended when needle pierced skin, Steve in Queens and Bucky in a HYDRA factory.

Bucky was still Bucky. His humor, while muted, was still the same. He still called Steve 'punk' and got exasperated when Steve got himself into trouble. But while he was still  _Bucky_  he was also different. His instance on keeping the hair, for one thing. During the war Bucky wasn't a fan of wine, schnapps, or even rum (though he'd make do with whatever was available), but now he was endlessly delighted by drinks that Natasha informed them were usually consumed by college girls on spring break. Bucky could only half-remember the songs of the 30s and 40s, melodies mixing into a discordant mess in his mind, so he stayed away from those old songs and enjoyed the meditative repetition of dubstep more than anything. He always was interested in Steve's art but it was more because of Steve than because of the art, but now the two of them could spend a whole day wandering through a museum.

Banksy was Bucky's favorite artist. Steve doubted that the Bucky of  _Before_  would have liked Banksy's work. Steve doubted that the Steve of  _Before_  would have liked Banksy's work. Bucky had a print of  _This is My New York Accent_  in his apartment and Steve had a print of  _"Rage" the Flower Thrower_  in his.

They were both different. And that was okay.

Bucky had enjoyed himself at the party but Steve could see that his old friend had just about reached his limit on social interaction for the night.

"Ready to head out?"

Bucky nodded and took a swig of something bright blue and decorated with lemon peel, then paused and looked at Steve with narrowed eyes. "You say that like you're coming with me."

A great many things changed since 1943, but the expression on Steve's face was vintage and would never go out of style. Something between 'what kind of monster do you take me for' and 'wow you really did take all the stupid with you'. As Bucky swiftly proved, the vocabulary of a soldier was similarly timeless.

"For fuck's sake, Steve, you don't have to leave just because my FUBARed ass can't take being a functioning member of society."

"You were getting along with Logan all right."

"I'm pretty sure getting along with _Wolverine_ is not a point in favor of being a functioning member of society."

"Buck—"

"I'm pretty sure he'd  _agree_  with me on that—"

" _Bucky_."

Steve waited a few beats while Bucky got the tongue in cheek disapproval out of his system.

"Look, Buck, I  _know_  that I don't have to leave with you. But things got a little... shaky, last week, and I'd kind of like a little one on one with my best guy. I've got some of that barely alcoholic pop you like so much."

"It's beer that tastes like hard candy. I'm not seeing the drawback, here."

"You do know that you're not going to get drunk off that, right?"

"Just means I can enjoy the taste more."

Bucky punctuated this statement by downing the rest of the one in his hand and then over-dramatically licking his lips. Steve tracked the movement of his old friend's tongue, then stopped himself, then replayed the conversation, then told himself that with how many times he gave that speech on the bond tour and how many times he told himself that at least in some small way he was helping get ammo and supplies to Bucky out on the front lines that of course he'd flub and call Bucky his best guy...

"So..." Bucky drew Steve away from the train of thought that had been running away more and more lately. "You inviting me up for a drink, soldier?"

Bucky's tone was teasing and his grin was the same sort of rakish grin Steve had seen melt more than one pretty girl. Then Steve watched what he thought must be the instant replay of his own realization of what was just said play across Bucky's face. If any dame said that during the war then it meant it was time to grab the prophylactic pack. It still had about the same meaning in the new century.

This sort of thing was happening more and more. Sure Steve he already knew he wasn't strictly into women and he was always aware of how his best friend was a looker but he never felt flush over it before. Bucky might as well be his  _brother_ , for god's sake. They always were brothers, from the day they met at an age so young neither of them remember it.

Sam was right. Things changed.

When Steve and Bucky left no one stopped them except to wave a quick goodbye—people were already peeling off and all of them understood needing to be alone or only with the closest friends after the week they just went through—and then in no time at all Steve was unlocking his apartment door. Bucky ghosted in to do a thorough sweep for bugs and Steve checked all the entrances. Steve didn't feel the paranoia as keenly as Bucky did, but after the upheaval that was finding Fury in his apartment and learning his neighbor was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he rethought his world view a little. Besides, sweeping a room helped put Bucky at ease, and when Steve joined in it helped Bucky feel less strange. Less broken.

Once the sweep was done they broke out the fruity flavored beer and heckled an inaccurate WWII movie for a while. They sat close on Steve's couch, closer as the movie drew to a close. Neither felt the effects of anything weaker than that one brew cooked up during what Pepper called "a mad scientist sleepover involving Tony, Bruce, Reed Richards, and way too much Red Bull", but half of being drunk was psychology anyway and the two of them fell into a mutual sag against one another.

Steve was all too aware of all the places Bucky's right side pressed into his left. This happened often enough  _Before_ , sitting together on Steve's crappy, narrow sofa. Half the time they sat even closer than they were on Steve's plenty big couch, back when Bucky threw an arm over still-narrow shoulders to keep a sickly pre-serum Steve warm... but the tone of the familiar contact had changed. For Steve, at least. Less warm, more electric.

He wrestled with it. He wrestled with a lot of feelings, about the future, about S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, about Peggy, about Howard's son being so much like him and yet so much not, but most of all about the maelstrom that was his feelings about Bucky. It took him longer than it should've to finally _listen_ to Sam when he talked about how even a single tour changed people. Steve had always been good at denial. He had to be, in order to function the way he used to be Before. When his asthma got bad or his heart valves beat ever so slightly out of rhythm and the rushing of his blood going wrong surged through his good and bad ear alike and he had to convince his aching body that he was okay for work, promise... he was A1 now but a man didn't unlearn nearly a quarter century of 4F overnight. Particularly not when a man was as stubborn as Steve Rogers.

So, it made sense that he didn't want to let go of the idea of Bucky as he was Before. It was childish and selfish, he could shamefully admit that now, but it made sense. Bucky was one of the few constants in his life, steadfast and comforting, an anchor in a hurricane. If an anchor constantly gave you hell. It took a lot of doing for Steve to admit that while Bucky was still  _Bucky_ , in a lot of ways he  _wasn't_. The Bucky of Before, of easy smiles and good-natured ribbing, was gone and he wasn't coming back. The Bucky of today, of now, the man sitting next to him with a bottle of black cherry Smirnoff Ice held loosely in his right hand he was a different man. Still Steve's best friend, for sure, but...

But if the way his skin sang where they touched was any indication, he didn't consider the Bucky of After his brother.

And Steve felt guilty about it. Still wasn't sure if he was supposed to be the same as he was to help Bucky remember, still wondered if he was allowed to feel differently, still worried that if these new feelings would get in they way of Bucky's recovery or their rearranged friendship, was downright scared that it could actively hurt his best friend...

"You're tense," Bucky murmured.

Steve glanced sideways, unwilling to actually move and risk losing the warm pressure of Bucky leaning into his side. "Sorry. I was thinking."

"About?"

The TV volume was at a respectable volume but it seemed muted and distant. Steve stared at the screen without seeing it and finally admitted, "The way everything has changed."

"Me? You?" A pause. "Us?"

"Yeah."

Bucky sighed deep. "It's... rough."

"Yeah."

"What if..." Steve felt the slight shift of weight and then Bucky's breath was on his cheek. "What if it was easy?"

Still refusing to move his body, Steve looked at his friend. They weren't bumping noses but it was close. They were close. Bucky looked like he was handling a live bomb, an expression that he never had when actually handling a live bomb but often had when dealing with people and life. But it was softer, less panicked than it usually was.

"It would be nice." Steve couldn't help but look at Bucky's lips. "If it was easy."

"I think the beer helps."

"We can't get drunk," Steve said on reflex. After a moment, he added, "And you're not drinking beer." _  
_

"It helps anyway," Bucky replied.

"Yeah."

The silence stretched the bare distance between them. But it wasn't uncomfortable.

"What if it was easy?" Steve echoed.

They moved in slowly, both giving the other plenty of time to change their mind and pull away, but neither of them stopped. Their first kiss was close-mouthed, chaste, and it should have been sweet but Steve was a ball of tightly wound nerves dearly wishing for the courage of alcohol and it wasn't easy, he didn't feel anything, why didn't he feel anything, he could feel how tense Bucky was, where were the sparks, he'd made a terrible mistake, _why couldn't this be easy_ \--

Then Bucky pulled back, looked distressed for a half second, and then dove back in with something wet and desperate.

And then, just like that, it was easy.

Steve twisted and let Bucky's weight push him over. There was an awkward tangle when they rearranged their legs--easy didn't mean graceful--but then Steve was on his back with his legs splayed so that Bucky could lay between them and every sloppy crash of tongue and teeth  _burned_. They couldn't seem to fit their mouths together properly and after missing Steve's lips completely one too many times Bucky growled in frustration and settled for the bigger target of Steve's neck. Hair was a thing that was different in the new Bucky, like the stubble scratching across Steve's throat or the shoulder-length mane which Steve was busily winding his fingers in. Steve decided he liked it. Then Bucky slowed for a moment and then nipped, experimentally, and Steve groaned.

Bucky lifted his head and stared up at Steve. He was panting.

"We should go slow," Steve blurted. "Shouldn't we?"

Swallowing hard, Bucky nodded.

"Go on a date. Be less, uh, horizontal. Talk about it. That... those seem like things we should do, right?"

Bucky tried to nod more enthusiastically but Steve's hands were still in his hair.

"What should... what do you want to do?"

Bucky blinked, slowly, and considered the idea of the question. Though it was healed over the scar of Steve's guilt was still new and tender. It stung when Bucky was taken off guard by the idea of someone genuinely wanting his opinion. The moment of surprised confusion passed quickly and then Bucky considered the question itself, head tilted slightly to the side and his eyes raking over Steve's features.

"We should go slow," Bucky said at last.

The reasonable side of Steve felt better. The rest of him--which, if he was being honest, was the majority--deflated. He tried valiantly to smother his hormones to middling success. "Okay."

"Because that would be the smart thing to do," Bucky continued.

"Yeah. Smart."

"If any of the others were here, they'd tell us that we should slow down." There was a tone of finality to that.

"Yes." The fire pooled in Steve's stomach was dying down. Smart thing to do. Best for them both. They should wait.

Even though the matter was settled Bucky didn't move. He did that, sometimes, was skittish about being touched by people he didn't trust but inside that very, very small circle he tended to forget about personal space. Bucky's weight was comfortable, though--well, not really, he was being careful with the hardware but his right elbow was digging into Steve's side but they were  _close_ \--and Steve had calmed down, really, so it was no hardship. It was just... nice.

Only slightly reluctantly, Steve smoothed down the mess he'd made of Bucky's hair. He rubbed Bucky's back instead, long firm strokes, and Bucky smiled faintly at the touch.

"Okay," Steve's voice was only the tiniest bit shaky, "so... it's agreed that it would be best if we went slow."

"Right."

"So... what do you want to do?"

Bucky looked to his left, unseeing at the TV, and mulled this over. Mulling involved chewing on his bottom lip, which was _very_ distracting. Finally, Bucky looked back at Steve, face still turned slightly to the side. He puffed at the hair falling into his eyes and Steve reached up to tuck the strands behind Bucky's ear. Steve was expecting Bucky to say he wanted to finish the movie, or to talk about what just happened, or maybe to just go home and see if things looked the same in the morning.

Steve toyed with a lock of hair and met Bucky's eyes. Steve searched them for any sign of the detached dullness that marked the early days of his recovery. He reflexively felt a tense knot form in his gut at the thought of pushing Bucky into anything he didn't want to do, but Bucky's eyes were clear and alert. And so, so handsome.

Finally, Bucky spoke. His tone was one of straightforward honesty, a statement of fact with only the slightest tremor belying the undercurrent of emotion and lust.

"I want to fuck you."

Steve's breath hitched.

Bucky leaned in. When he spoke again it was a growl.

"I want to _fuck_ you."

"Oh." Steve blinked. "Okay."

They managed a grand sum of Bucky's shirt hanging off one arm and Steve's shirt severely rumpled before Bucky slipped and accidentally elbowed Steve in the stomach. Steve winced, rolled his eyes, and shoved Bucky off him. As soon as the two of them had their feet Bucky grabbed Steve by his stubborn shirt and yanked him along. Steve chuckled and allowed himself to be manhandled. At the bedroom Bucky let go long enough to shake his own shirt off and open the door. Steve got bare-chested quick and flipped the switch; he'd seen Bucky shirtless plenty of times when they sparred, but this was _different_ and he didn't want to miss a single thing in the dark.

When the lights came up Bucky's step faltered. Frowning, Steve reached up and turned them off again. Bucky was on him in an instant, pushing him back until the doorframe was digging into his back. After another round of frenzied kisses Bucky leaned his head on Steve's shoulder, almost like they were dancing.

"Do you want this?" Bucky asked quietly. _Do you want me_ , the real question, hung in the air.

Steve grasped at the back of Bucky's shirt as though the other man might disappear. " _Yes_."

"Did... did you always?"

"No." A pounding heartbeat pause. "I mean, I always knew you were handsome. Particularly after I got to life drawing and could put a name to why your jawline was so pretty. And you were a charming bastard so that made _everything_ worse. I think if I carried myself with half the confidence you did then I might not have been such a stellar failure when it came to talking to women before the serum..."

Steve was babbling. Bucky was still and quiet in his arms, head still pillowed on Steve's shoulder.

"I don't think I wanted you like this either," Bucky said at last. "But I'm not... I'm not sure..."

"You didn't," Steve blurted, surprised at his conviction but once he took a second to think it made perfect sense. "You caught me, once, letting a queen take me home. When I flipped my wing you admitted to going down on your knees for a sailor." Steve kissed the side of Bucky's head. "Given you knew that I was all right going home with a guy, and you were too... if you wanted me back then, you would've had me."

"Would you have wanted me? Then?"

"... No."

"Then I wouldn't've had you."

Steve smile was sad. "You're right. You wouldn't've."

"Would I now?" Bucky pressed his lips to the side of Steve's neck.

"You would. You _do."_ Steve swallowed around his dry mouth. "Do I?"

Bucky breathed deep and then leaned back, hands still resting on Steve's hips and still pressed up against him. Firm and warm and _real_. Bucky fixed Steve with an intense, probing stare. Questioning. Honest. Hopeful.

"You do," Bucky whispered. "You _do_."

And then he turned the lights back on.

 


End file.
